Ouroboros Spine pinched

she came to @Kukutux for the advice of a mother, of a wife.

callyope had settled with the feelings and still found she could not split her way through them. as if they had become ice, too thick to be broken.

there was no ramskin upon her shoulders.

i feel dishonest, i feel conflicted, anaa.

can be a quick one, she just needs mom advice <3

<3

work was the sum of a mind that could not be alone with its own thoughts.

late fall, rodyn had said. autumn hunting. winter hunting. she taught her songs to the grandgirls and decided that she would keep her older grandsons close during this assembly.

wives must be found.

her clan circle must be free of any unmended stitching.

callyope came then, and her mother's eyes saw that she wore no pelt over her slim shoulders. "tell me, daughter." but where had white elk gone?

white elk wished to try and marry me,

and she had wanted him to! so bad that it burned her throat now!

but i have not seen him and i do not know how far he has walked. and there is a man in moontide who spoke our words, anaa. he guards my name now! he said he would cherish it and i waited until a second time to say it to him. he offered to wait a third, but i—

she paced, her eyes welling with tears. throat tightened too much to speak.

a man in moontide.

a man who guarded names.

kukutux knew only two hunters who walked there.

"do you hurt for white elk? do you rush to hear the words of this other man for the pain in your spirit, callyope?"

it would be fitting if rodyn and this daughter of the moon chose one another, kukutux felt. and where she might not once have pressed, she remembered how she had been permissive with ariadne, how her lack of forceful word had surely contributed to the death of her girl.

now she must know who this unsaid hunter would be.

did she hurt for white elk?

was the first hunter a balm for this pain?

i do not know.

she did not know and it was for that reason she had come to her mother. uncertain and unraveling. a woman who wanted and felt as though no one wanted her in return.

it was good to be seen by someone who knew the things most important to me. she confessed softly. i cried for samani — she hurt now to say the name and her shoulders rolled like waves. and he was there.

samani.

"many loved your sisters," she said, speaking of both they had lost. both that had been buried with children left behind them.

"many have loved a nuiruk woman."

her arms were soft around callyope. "it brings me relief to know you were not alone."

kukutux did not ask his name, realizing in ferocity she was reluctant to let callyope far from her sight.

"many loved your sisters."

"i loved her too,"

would she be loved? or would she be loved for being the ghost of her sisters? beautiful and wedded, mothers and village makers.

she was held and she cried.

how often had her mother and her gathered each other for tears now? just as kukutux's grief aged her, callyope had grown a tiredness that aged her too.

i am tired of losing, anaa. she confessed in a soft, near-muffled whisper. i am ready for life and a home full of it. i do not want to wait forever.

"oh, mauya," kukutux breathed out, and now her own tears came.

callyope carried the same burden of grief with nothing to assuage it.

swiftly; she thought; she considered;

"the man who made moontide a home with your sea-sister, yes," moonmother whispered, drawing back to cup the exquisite face in her work-roughened paws. "he has kept the village. he has filled it with riches."

he will not make you wait.

but with him, would not the shade of samani press down? kukutux could not see it, and hoped that callyope would hear her, would hear the name yet unspoken, the worthier man.

her face was held and he listened intently to each word spoken.

but it was not him that she had pictured. bear-faced hunter? he was not the scarred image of first warrior that had plagued her.

yet he was steadfast, he was certain. only she was worried what panuk might think of such a thing! would he come to loathe her as if she sought to replace her sister? would the moontide man think such a thing too?

have you spoke such to him?

"not of you."

relief in her, to hear that callyope did not immediately draw away or deny this path.

"when we spoke of it first, he was not ready. but i see the loneliness in him. he is a man who has all but what he wishes."

she would not have her daughter see this as a duty. rodyn deserved more than such a notion. 

but she would also not see callyope as third!

crane bird became a fox.

you must be the one to say my name to him. she would not budge on this and gave reason to it.

i worry he and panuk would think i mean to only take a place not meant for me.

she tasted sea salt, she tasted egg yolk.

i feel dishonest, i feel conflicted — and the feelings had not left her when she thought they might.

did she?

callyope knew of whom she spoke.

kukutux nodded at the words, for they were true to be said. rodyn might not wish this. but panuk had never known his anaa, and already the crane-woman was this.

the fox's eyes glowed.

and the duck lifted her chin. "you know rodyn. what do you know of chakliux?" she guessed, for unless there was some other man with the power to charm beside the sea, then her hurting daughter had been led astray by that lecherous seal hunter.

first warrior,

part question, part statement. who else could carry that name? who else might have been the one to bring laughter into her after loss?

but he had loved samani.

just as rodyn had.

she wanted to slither and free herself, but a fox was caught and crushed by a lynx. stilled in the paws of her mother she could not move an inch.

he was the one i spoke of. he hunted sea birds with me.

do not be mad at him, be mad at me. her gaze a softened, begging thing.

she did not know everything her mother knew, she must listen.

"first warrior."

but she was not angered at callyope.

"first warrior. seal hunter. first wife taken from moonglow. second wife taken from moonspear. third wife taken from moontide. he sought samani's eye even when he knew she and rodyn had made their bond. he fawned for ariadne's attention at the bison hunting. sialuk, i have heard her singing for him. his first wife gave him a son. his second wives have given him five more. and yet he is not pleased," and kukutux felt anger growing in her, "now he looks at another. nothing will be enough for a man such as that, callyope. you will give him children and he will take a fifth wife. aya!"

but she still was not angry with the daughter who sat in silent listening. "third wife. nuiruk will not matter. you will tend his many children and be lost in his love of women. i know the way of seal hunters, mauya. almost i married one."

"through sun and moon, you have much status. you have a name which is known beyond our lands. do not trade it for something so worthless."

his wives were all women of moon clans.

but i will be a good wife. a better wife. a best wife.

but why tear apart the lives of his other wives? of the children which he had numerous of? how could she have ever lived a life of someone’s third (or fourth!) choice when she feared being someone’s second?

her mother had almost known this life, but she had not taken it. now her mother had a stable marriage with many children who had worth beyond their home. it would have been a spit upon her mother’s turmoils and history to be married off as a man’s fourth choice.

it did not matter if he made her laugh, if she looked long upon his handsomeness.

she would never be his first choice and not through loss of his wives, but through his collection of them.

is that why they know what to say? she wanted to be light and humor, but sadness still clung to her words like a wet fur. you must know what to say to have so many wives.

she did not know him, but she missed him still. mourned the things that clearly could not be.

she heard.

she listened..

"yes. and no. i do not doubt that he loves marina and tullik, and is devoted to them. he hunts for each and brings gifts. he adores the children born to his lodge. it is the trueness of such love that brings hurt."

"when he is yours, he is yours. it will be as if sedna had made only the two of you to walk the face of the world. those moments will delight your heart."

"but how many of these moments will you have as third, callyope? how long until the delight is only a memory?"

lay with him if you wish. but do not love him.

how many?

they might be good moments, but they would not be long. not when he must also give those moments to other wives. and the time spread among children too!

maybe she should not think so terribly, but she wished she might know him as she imagined him. only it could not be him.

a seal hunter was not a sunshine person, such could not work the other way too.

i know now, she whispered with a gentle nod. i only wished — for happiness, to be wanted. perhaps her mother had been correct the first time and callyope had only looked to him as someone soothing her hurts.

i have not known a man’s company. she confessed to her mother now, but without any sheepishness. i worry that it means i will not know their charms when i see them, that i will be too quick to settle and confuse love for…what it isn’t.

maybe that was why her mother had suggested safety and familiarity.

she had not known a man, and for a moment did kukutux consider telling callyope of the seal hunters' First Rite.

but what would this do for her daughter but free the mind from its expectations?

"when i was a girl, a seal hunter asked my mother and my father if i would accept his son. i did. in that time, callyope, we were very young. it was done this way for villages had many, many days between them. i left my mother's side to live in his village. after these moons, he did the same for me, and we lived in my father's ulaq."

breath, wavering; the taste of snow from clouds which scudded over sea ice.

"our courting was long. it is done this way to know if two can live together as one, when they are finally to be married. we were husband and wife in most ways. but i did not know all things until i came here, to this place." her mind flashed then to the image of a widowed girl, stained with tears and dragging some last tatters of seal-meat in a ragged cloak.

breath, wavering; the taste of pinewood and soft rain,

"waited until my fire-time to know a man," kukutux murmured. "i was given in payment to the ostrega clan of moonspear, who held the first village upon the mountain. they did not know my ways. the blackbear woman offered me to one brother, but he was ashamed. i had the want for this, but they ah — a man is not simply given a wife in this land."

"there were always more brothers. i met the blackfox next. when the fire came for me, he took me as wife. and though i did not truly understand all of him, though i still felt as if we were new to one another, i have gladness, that i waited. it was as it should be, callyope. you will know."

kukutux had loved jarilo from the first falling of snow upon his face. sedna had taken him and given her a life with more beautiful glories than she had seen upon the mountain, and she had come to understand that love demanded such from those who pursued its embrace.

the story unfolded.

callyope realized that her mother had already lived many and long lives. she herself was only at the start of one of these many lives that kukutux had experienced. it was these things that made her moonwoman. not simply being mother, not simply being the head of moonglow.

moonwoman was a cumulation of knowledge and many histories.

moonwoman saw many things, so that she may guide those through them.

she had forged new ways in this land. men had not simply been given wives and a moonspear stood before the one her sister now ruled. brothers, but none until blackfox. and it was only when her mother burned did this blackfox make her wife.

you will know.

maybe she was meant to wait until her own burning. maybe she was meant to stay only upon the course her mother might set.

i will wait. i will know. it was not confidence but it was a promise. the hunting...when the time comes, look upon hunters for me as my mother and moonwoman. one who will know my worth as one of sun and moon.

i know you have guided me with one name already, but if he does not want it...if he does not know.

guide me, anaa, and i will know.

she could not speak anymore, but her voice rattled in her mind.

do not leave me. do not let me stray. guard my own heart when i am too weak to.

i am sorry for not listening deeply sooner, anaa.

callyope gave her name to those who wished a bonding. rodyn. ipiktok. perhaps even lomion. 

callyope.

"the name i have given you, if you wish me to speak with him, i will do this. and i will look for hunters." she could gather more names, but why? kukutux felt as though the answer to crane-woman's want had already been provided.

yet she did not say this. callyope had just found herself prepared to consider. it was time and the growing desire which would shape the future paths.

"consider now what you wish for bride price. you will be head of your village and this is given to you, not to your mother and father. it was this way with ariadne also. only samani received her wealth at our ulaq."

she studied callyope. "tell me if you wish me to do this for you, and we will stand for you."

please.

her voice felt small, wedged back in her throat like a blockade to her emotions.

and her bride price! she must decide it as head of her own village! yet it had not come to rise and she worried if one who hunted her bride price might think it would be lost upon her. oh, what a terrible thought. she must remind herself this was for her as much as any village she was claimed by.

it felt as if her mother knew and she offered.

speak my name and set my bride price. until my village stands i still wish to be yours to guide, anaa. even when i roam.

her blood would always be moonglow no matter anything that came after.

"i will do this."

from rodyn she knew many things could be gathered, but it was these others for which she must plan.

"i have the want for your very great happiness," the duck assured, and swept a paw around the slender shoulders. to think of springtime weddings, summer-dancing, grandchildren born anew in the moonplaces; it soothed her heart.

they existed together in the quiet way of women, knowingness in each pair of eyes.